


whiskey on the rocks

by grandstander



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Western, Alternate Universe- High Noon, Fluff, M/M, high noon, romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 13:24:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20779304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grandstander/pseuds/grandstander
Summary: Everyone needs something to keep them crawling out of hell time and time again.Sometimes that something is a handsome bartender with blue eyes.





	whiskey on the rocks

**Author's Note:**

> did you know one of the chromas for darius's high noon skin has a rose in the jacket and also i am gay and weak?
> 
> sorry i havent gotten around to finishing both of my god king wips. i work and go to school so i'm fairly busy but the idea of darius flirting with garen and leaving him with a rose hit me like a truck so i drabbled it the evening after i got off work.

There’s only so many times you can see a stranger with a marred face or scars like hell fire up the length of their arms before it starts to lose its shock value. After so many people tumble into your bar like that in the dead of night, beat to hell and back ( quite literally ), you learn to keep some extra rags and shirts on a shelf underneath the counter as a precaution. Devils and demons roam the outskirts of the desert, something Garen and his family had learned years ago before they came stumbling into town with nothing but the clothes on their backs. The people here took pity on them; many of them bore scars from the same hell beasts. The old bartender gave Garen his job there at the saloon some years ago now. A month or so after he started working there, he caught sight of a great fissure of a scar that had peaked out under the collar of his shirt that looked more like burning wood than flesh. 

The swing of the saloon doors doesn’t alert Garen’s attention, it never does. His head is still bowed as he wipes the inside of a glass while a steady, slow tune is played on a piano in the corner of the bar room. The ever familiar sound of boots across wooden floor boards follows note for note, an uncanny sync in sounds, but equally pleasant to the ear nonetheless. He hears one of the bar stools sliding against the floor, and finally the sound of metal spurs coming to a stop as someone sits down at the bar near Garen. When he looks up finally, the face he sees is warmly familiar; a pair of bright, warm eyes that look as if they’re made of cinders, a subtle grin on a worn face, strong and wide features, dark hair underneath the brim of an equally dark hat.

Darius could see the smile that had spread across Garen’s lips even though he had looked back down already, a subtle pull at the corners of his lips that would linger on his features even if Garen played hard to get. 

“Back already?” the bartender asked him, setting down the glass he had wiped clean earlier on the counter. By now, Darius didn’t need to tell him what he wanted. Wordlessly, Garen poured him a glass of whiskey. 

“Guess I can’t help myself,” came the low rumble of Darius’s voice, deep and warm like the coals of a fire during the night. It had that alluring roll to it that made Garen want to settle down next to him and lean into his side while he listened to that same voice talk to him softly under a sky full of stars. “Can’t help comin’ to see my favorite bartender,” he added as he picked up his glass of whiskey, grinning over the rim of the glass in a way that made his words feel like they were laced with the same whiskey he was drinking.

“Anyone could pour you whiskey, you know,” Garen answers, but the small smile that had spread across his lips since Darius sat down still lingered. 

“It ain’t the same without a pretty face to look at,” Darius said as he sat his glass down and folded his arms over the wooden counter, his voice rough and low, like he was trying to pull Garen in by the waist with his voice alone. He got a small laugh out of his bartender, Garen’s smile widening as he chuckled to himself and poured more whiskey into Darius’s half full glass. 

“You’re not gettin’ any free drinks just ‘cause you’re tryin’ to butter me up.” Garen looked back up at him, blue eyes as crystal clear as the cloudless skies that would stretch over the desert during the day, still grinning at him. Garen met him step for step in that sort of slow banter Darius brought with him. Even when he laid on the sugar and honey thicker than molasses, Garen still stood steady and calm, his smiles and small laughs were his hard won prizes at the end of the night. 

“’m not after any drinks, Garen,” Darius replied, his voice deeper and lower, almost soft despite the rough rumble he always had. He picked up his glass again and took another sip of his whiskey, those low burning pair of embers that were his eyes still locked with Garen’s over the rim while he let the heavy, warm implications of his flirtations sink in. It sinks into him slowly, like dust finally settling, and Garen feels like he is wrapped in a thick wool coat from just the words spoken to him. Warmth rises to his cheeks, dusting them in a pink color as he looks away and quietly chuckles to himself again. It’s a hard won sight and token of affection, but Darius doesn’t dare take his eyes off the other man for how rare it is he can wittle Garen down to such a state. 

“Let me take ya’ for a ride sometime,” he continues, leaning over his folded arms resting on the counter, his voice still that low, warm rumble that is trying to rope Garen into him. Garen can only describe Darius as a low burning fire in the dead of night, pulling him in more and more, a fire that would slowly curl around him and lick his skin until he was held in it. He was like a fire that burned, that could burn through everything, the heavy step of his boots and the dark that trailed in his shadow step him in brimstone and ash, but here he was licking at Garen’s heels to try and pull him into a warmth that was indulgent more than it was savage. 

“I d’unno about that, Darius,” Garen murmurs after a sigh while he rubs the back of his neck with a hand. “‘M not sure how much your horse would like havin’ to carry the both of us either,” he adds with a weak laugh while absentmindedly gesturing with a hand to the post outside that Darius more than likely had his horse tied to. 

“What, Brutus? That ol’ bastard can handle it,” Darius laughed as he raised a hand to flick the rim of his hat, tipping up to show more of those brilliant burning eyes that reminded Garen of liquid gold. “C’mon, Garen,” he continued, his voice softening to that low, warm tone again, his expression softening to a look of genuine, tender longing. 

Garen stared at him for a moment and he truly contemplated the offer. It seemed surreal to imagine himself riding off with Darius to only god and the devils knew where to sit under a starry night sky together, leaning against each other while watching embers jump into the air from a fire. It was as close to a fairytale as anyone around here could get, he supposes, but there is the ever looming promise of what laid at the horizon where the sun set like a wildfire across the land, where the demons came out to hunt and deal. He’d only ever met two cowboys who’d dealt with demons and hadn’t turned as rotten as the devils in the wild. There was always his family, too. He sighed and looked down, a bittersweet smile on his lips as he picked up a new glass to aimlessly wipe clean. 

“Ask me some other time, maybe,” he finally answered.

Darius sighed too, but truthfully he expected an answer along those lines. A small part of him hoped nonetheless, but Garen had been hard to win over from the very beginning when he came riding through this town at the dead of night. The people in these little dusty towns were rightfully careful with all the devils that roamed the desert beyond their little sanctuaries. It was only after months and months of little moments with the bartender had he finally started to chip away at that cold shoulder to get those smiles and little chuckles. He pushed himself off the counter and picked up his glass one final time and emptied before setting it back down and sliding it back towards Garen. 

He dropped a few coins on the counter after he pushed his glass away, but before getting up, he raised his hand and pulled the bright rose that had been tucked into the collar of his leather jacket and gently laid it on the counter next to the money. It’s color was a brilliant red that bordered on strange, especially for a flower having been picked and sitting in the collar of a cowboy out in the desert, but it’s brightness added to its uniqueness. The small token made Garen’s heart feel soft in his chest, like he was gradually becoming clay underneath Darius’s touch. He almost wanted to change his mind and go with him for that ride he offered. Just one couldn’t hurt, right?. Garen knew better than that, though ( or, at least, he thought he did ). 

Garen picked up the rose first, his attention drawn to it’s brilliant color and the genuinely romantic act of leaving him a flower. Darius only watched him out of the corner of his eye as he got up from the barstool, lingering for a moment to fix his jacket and pull the brim of his hat back down. 

“‘Til next time, then,” he said as he started to turn away. 

“Darius,” Garen quickly said his name, finally raising his gaze to meet the other man’s burning eyes. “Make sure ya’ come back.” 

“Is that a request?"

“A promise. I want ya’ to promise me you’ll come back.” 

Darius sighed once more as he turned away from Garen, head bowed slightly for a moment. It was hard to promise something like that in this world, he’s sure Garen knows that, but how could he say no to a handsome face like that? 

“Alright, I’ll come back, I promise,” he finally answered as he turned to look back at Garen, his lips stretched into an amused grin ( he didn’t say anything, but it lit some kind of new fire at the bottom of his soul to make sure he made good on that promise ). Garen returned the smile, one so genuine and bright that his eyes lit up, he looked damn near angelic. It made Darius’s heart constrict in his chest until it felt tight, he wanted to stay there in that low light of lanterns and talk over whiskey with him for hours, maybe stay the night, but the night was a dangerous time for someone like him to be around other folk. He watched as Garen held the rose close to his chest, still smiling at him as he turned his back to him and headed quietly into that hellish night. 


End file.
